[size=28pt] Sodom and Gomorrah![/size]
•[size=18pt]Where old prostitutes live[/size]
By Jossy Idam
Sunday, May 17, 2009
•Lido Empire Hotel
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Daytime life at Lido Empire Hotel is dull and uninteresting. Only few men and their female consorts huddle at corners drinking while they gist and bargain quietly. After a long night of sex, booze and head-spinning cigarettes, most of the girls at the joint either nurse their hangover or quietly get ready to swing when night comes. And they come too soon, wearing lavender perfume and skimpy black negligee.

Indeed, activities in and around the hotel are a modern-day depiction of the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, where sex is cheap and moral values at their lowest.

Date with the night
When night engulfs the city of Lagos like a dark spider web, Empire Hotel’s red, blue and green electric bulbs wink and beckon to passersby. Whores (sorry, girls, as they preferred to be called), line up the narrow Atan Street in Surulere and wait expectantly.

Dressed in tatty clothes and revealing their individual vital statistics - large breasts, slim thighs, cleavage, big bums and pretty face - the girls wait patiently for someone who would drop by and say, ‘How now? How e go be?’ On a good night, patrons troop in to keep the girls busy and giggly.
After hanging out there for two weeks, our reporter found out that even prostitutes have pride. They don’t like being hustled and beggared around. They prefer a good patron to walk up to them, give compliments, ‘toast’ a bit, buy them a drink or two before looking room-ward.

As one of the girls, Gift (as she likes to be called), said, a bad night is "when a girl go wait outside sotey nobody come to am." At such nights, the girls become jittery, anxious and moody. They easily can fall for "anything in trousers" and for as low as N500.
"You no understand, and Ashawo (prostitute) must eat, pay for accommodation and must look well," Gift said in the typical Waffi (Warri) pidgin English.
Dark, tall and looking a bit spent, she told Sunday Sun she is from Ogwashi-Ukwu in Delta State. "I be student. I only come here to raise small money and go back to school," she further revealed but declined to disclose the name of her so-called school and her true identity.

Wild nights
Friday to Sunday are steamy days. The scarlet ladies of the night have more patrons on weekends. As early as 4pm on Fridays, Empire Hotel begins to boom and reign. Older patrons leisurely stroll in and seek out their good time girls.
On one of the Friday night, when an older patron whom one of the girls greeted and called "Oga Taiwo" ambled in, some of the girls began calling for his consort. "Tina, come-o, your boyfriend don come."

But the man is a jaded horse. As though on cue, Tina, a woman long past her prime, ran to the bar and hugged Oga Taiwo. After some pleasantries, the bald, grizzled old man ordered for drinks - six bottles of small stout and four bottles of lager beer for the women. He even gave Tina a wrapped present.
The gift turned out to be a tight-fitting floral blouse. Tina tried it on and proudly showed it around for other girls to see. Coquettishly accusing other girls of jealousy, she grabbed Oga Taiwo’s hand and led him to her room upstairs. They stayed there for a while before re-appearing.

Turn by turn
Not weighed down by the barometer of time and age, the old vice queens still see and call themselves "girls." The sprinkle of real young girls in their midst re-energises the flabby mamas and make them feel good. By an unwritten rule, they use the bar as a quasi-reception and waiting room. Patience is the name of the game if a patron is keen on a particular girl. If she is "busy" when he comes, the man must wait for his turn.
Seeing other girls who were drinking, chatting and half-heartedly watching a film on the bar’s partially broken television set, Tina smiled wanly and asked: "Wetin all of una dey look? Abi una no sabi say na my guy ?" The girls laughed knowingly and soon lost interest in Tina and her aged companion.

Downstairs, upstairs
As the evening deepens, music begins to blare and crest with loud-bantering voices and television. The place comes alive with a throng of men ogling the bevy of old and young whores. Some of the men literally grab at the girls, touching and haggling for the price of an all-night sex and "short time."
No pretences in this veritable flesh market. When a bargain is struck, the LovePeddler and her patron disappear into a room upstairs or downstairs. A lucky prostitute could go several short times and still have an all-night man. Some early morning travellers prefer bedding-in with the girls in order not to miss the early morning bus. This way, they get a combination of fun and shelter.
As the night wears thin, the girls tend to settle for any amount for an early hour sex marathon. "Na so this place be. A girl must be ready to hustle. Ashawo work no easy," a rolly-polly, aged LovePeddler said.

Defying gravity
Although clearly over the waves in age, Tina, as she is popularly known at Empire Hotel, seems less bothered. "Why age go worry me? Some men still want me more than these small girls," she said. To her, sex is a matter of taste, and as such shouldn’t be debated or legislated on. Struggling to be swanky, Tina claims to have more patrons than most young girls in the sex trade.
Hear her: "These little girls no sabi any thing. We old ones brought them up. I dey satisfy any man who come to me."
When retirement was mentioned, Tina waved it off and joined a waiting potential customer in the hotel bar. Oga Taiwo had gone or was fast asleep in her bed-sitter and cubicle.

The morning after
After an all-night orgy, the hotel does not come alive or stir until around midday. The girls wake up in bits. They don’t cook. They depend on food vendors on the street. Most of them wake up with bleary eyes and groaning hunger. When fortified with food, they shower, clean up their rooms, make up and take a long digestive rest. The endless party and marathon sex resume in the evening. The general cleaning of the joint is the odd job of an old female cleaner. While carting away heaps of refuse - used tissue papers and condoms - she mumbles and grumbles bitterly. But the whores do not care. Life to them is an endless merry-go-round and marathon sex.

Ayilara dethroned
In the 80s and early 90s, Ayilara Street, Surulere, also in Lagos, was the red light capital of the state. But not any more. Atan and Okusanya streets have taken the crown. The entire street and area is now known as "Empire." Other small, slothy joints and even businesses have been dwarfed by the old storey building.

The hotel has a glorious past. In the 70s when Fela Anikulapo’s Kalakuta Republic was located across the road there, it was learnt that it was an entertainment hot spot. Pa Okunuga, a 68-year-old retired railway worker told Sunday Sun notable highlife bands used to perform every weekend there.
"That place is not what it used to be. These young people have destroyed it. Chief Osadebe, Eddy Okonta and others used to play here. Now, na so so harlots full the place."
Sunday Sun investigation revealed that the hotel was built by a businessman, now dead, to commemorate the Commonwealth Day, which also coincided with Britain’s Queen Victoria’s birthday. But over the years, it has changed ownership several times. Now a "certain madam" owns and runs the place as a bar and brothel.

Prefab rooms
Structurally, age doesn’t seem to tell on the old building, as it gets dabs of paint very often and looks like a grand old woman. The normal rooms in the hotel have been further partitioned with plywood and cardboards. The girls numbering up to 50 pay for the shelter once in a week. There are two broad room categories. The fairly large rooms upstairs go for N5,500 a week. The small ones downstairs attract N4,500 weekly. Any girl who defaults gets a warning from the two bearded male managers of the place. But if the debt runs up to two weeks, the defaulters are usually given the boot. This is however rare as other girls would rally and offset the debt.
"The managers good. They no dey embarrass any body. If you no get money to pay, they will even beg you to pay. This na business", another LovePeddler known there simply as Beauty said.
Fair and still bleaching Beauty is a mother of two. According to her, she left the children in the care of her mother in Ondo State "to hustle and maintain the children." She told Sunday Sun her husband deserted her three years ago and took off with another woman.

Love-hate relationship
Angry voices, frayed nerves, Accusations and counter-accusations are common. Mary, one of the girls, had accused Nene of using "juju" to attract men. Nene, in turn, branded her a witch. The place became a Babel. It took the burly, bearded manager to restore normalcy in the hotel. But the same evening, a man who refused to pay up after "doing" one of the girls got the beating of his life. The prostitutes gathered in solidarity and still forced the man to cough out the N1,000 his female companion demanded.

No room; co-habitation only
At Empire Hotel, there is no room for male lodgers. If a man must or wants to stay there, it will only be possible if he "arranges" to co-habit and "bed-in" with one of the prostitutes. Evangelin, simply called "Orobo" because of her jumbo size, told Sunday Sun: "The arrangement good. The man go sleep here and get it free. For me, I normally charge N2,000, for accommodation. I no fit collect more money after we finish. I go do that if I want drive the man."

Getting high
The girls and patrons of the hotel get high not only on booze but on Indian hemp and "Jadi" cigarette. Jadi is a hand-rolled stuff, believed there to cure pile. An Hausa hawker known simply as Mallam sells a stick at N10. Marijuana, which is sold and smoked openly, goes for N20 per stick. A sticker on the wall of the hotel’s bar clearly states: "No smoking of Indian Hemp (Igbo) here". And so, the street is thick with the harsh smell of the stuffs.

Full protection
Located close to the Abalti military barracks, the hotel serves as a "watering hole" for the khaki boys. Military boys come to the joint in droves to unwind and ‘mess around’ with the girls. With the regular presence of the military boys, the owners of the place feel fully protected. Even the police on patrol drop by almost every night to get some "cigar and beer" money.

No age barrier
Simply called "Auntie" because she seems to be the oldest among the whores, the middle-aged woman is a clear prove that prostitution has no age limit. Bantering with our reporter, she claims "young boys like me more than those small, small girls. I know the business more than them."
Auntie, a mother of three, told Sunday Sun the secret of the business is for a prostitute "to eat good food, rest well, dress well and do yanga."
Asked about her husband and children, she declined to go into details.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/may/17/national-17-05-2009-002.htm

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This[b] Jossy Idam[/b] is smoking. Probably the most prolific investigative reporter in Nigeria right now & constantly walking on the dark side